When There is Fear of Death

I see order where before was chaos. I see ascension into everlasting life where before was descent into death. I see birth, a becoming, not a ceasing to be.

I see a Great Pulse which beats everywhere in nature and which is Life. I see my own unity with this pulse and that it fills me more and more abundantly with inflowing, invigorating Life. I feel this inflow now. It thrills me into new perception.

I am laid bare to myself. The veil of the temple is rent in twain. I stand before it awed and mystified no longer.

All graves give up their dead unto me. I have a right to demand this of them. No tomb can keep its secret from me. The tomb of death is the womb of life.

I am, I was, I shall be, but I am being made—fashioned after the likeness of God. I must still come forth from my lesser self and go up higher. I must come forth from all selfs less than the divine. I must ascend again and again, stopping for a season to see and know and going on toward divinity.

I must leave my garment "in their hands" while I press forward to my enduring habitation. As a naked soul I mount higher and higher leaving to the dust that which is of the dust. I go whence I came.

I walk through the valley of shadow; it cannot hold me to itself. I fear no evil in my journey, for there is no evil in it. I have put from me the sense of evil which gave birth to its kind.

I see the eternal Good which overrules this continuous birth that mortal sense calls death. I feel the protection of this Good which never slumbers or sleeps.

I am not made sad at the prospect of leaving those who love me; for I see that we are all one in Christ; and that as the Christ consciousness awakens and comes forth from the tomb in which it has been slumbering, it will find and know its own. Those whom I love and who love me will never be separated from me because I leave my garment in their hands as I am born out of its world.

For love is not of that world. It is the fragrance of the soul that reveals its source. Though they see my garment silent and motionless, I shall be more alive than when I wore it. And they shall some time leave their own, dust mingling with dust even as soul blends with soul.

I have no fear. I see and I know. O! death! where is thy sting? O! grave! where is thy victory?